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This Seattle event marks the first time I watched so many big names and championship hopeful drivers go down for the count so early in the weekend. First, it was Ryan Tuerck going out to Stoneback in the Top 32 with a mechanical failure. Then Vaughn Gittin Jr. defeats Nitto teammate Odi Bakchis in the Top 32 putting the #1/#2 championship drivers out with 16 points + qualifying for the weekend. Then Top 16 swept up Chris Forsberg and Ken Gushi cleaning the slate of all the forward momentum from this season for those four drivers. Fredric Aasbo side stepped all the land mines and took home first place and built a huge gap in the championship for himself leaving the next two rounds a big mystery.

9. Forrest Wang Being Faulted for Inactive Chase, HUH?

Who knew that Mad Mike was that fast or Forrest Wang was that slow? The inactive chase penalty against Forrest Wang seemed beyond harsh to me. The judges need to wake up please! You cannot fault a guy for inactive chase when he is driving his ass off but his car is just beyond slower than another car (see Faruk Kugay vs. Alex Heilbrunn in Pro 2 for same stupid call). The inactive chase was made for the penalization of cupcaking when one driver has a dominant lead and then doesn’t chase. I always recall Jim Guthrie vs. Vaughn Gittin Jr. at Wall Speedway as a perfect utilization for this. You cannot punish people for not building drag car/rocket ships or I guess now you can do just that…. I never got the impression Wang was cup caking around the course. I think it was a tough way to end a great Top 32 battle. Not sure if I have a better answer for this one but it just feels like a bad beat in my gut.

8. Yokoi Is the New Chelsea DeNofa

This guy has the most insane tandem follow runs of this season. I wish drivers would get out of his way so he could keep winning. His first battle with Pat Goodin was wild and I think he edged out Goodin in the end but judges went OMT. His chase on the OMT was just balls deep insane but sadly he made contact with Goodin and lost. Sound like someone else you know? Yes, Chelsea DeNofa who at times performs the best tandem follow runs the world has ever seen but mostly to a detriment in the end. Can Yokoi overcome that issue and continue to put on a show that is entertaining everyone while running clean? I guess time will tell us but he is looking more serious round by round in that chromed out 2JZ powered S15 Silvia.

Street Driven Tour rolled into the midwest on America’s birthday to throw a fun drift bash with mini- games and a Rival House Hard Parkathon with plenty of American flags to boot. Chris Forsberg, Forrest Wang, and Brandon Wicknick rounded out the Formula Drift pros in attendance with a ton of other solid drivers from the midwest including Brian Peter, Mike Feiock, Steve Topping, Rolando Alfaro and many more. Check out the video recap made by Subject Media!

Here is what it looks like to ride with the smooth operator Chris Forsberg at the top of 4th gear around the Gateway Motorsports Park track. The Street Driven Tour event on July 4th was a wild one with Forrest Wang and Brandon Wicknick joining the fun and chasing Chris Forsberg all day in his VK56 powered Infiniti M45.

Faruk Kugay hails from Northern California and made the hella long drive to Orlando, Florida so he could participate in Pro 2. So Faruk is coming off a great performance at Golden Gate Drift Pro Am last season. We even caught up with him back then and made a little documentary of him back in Pro Am.

Here is a video of Brandon Wicknick from Street Driven Tour St. Louis taking off in a chase run behind Forrest Wang and Chris Forsberg around Gateway Motorsports Park. Once Brandon Wicknick hit the high speed turns at GMP part of his car karate chops the roof and knocks off a GoPro. The war against the GoPro is real!

In case you didn’t have the time to watch the Drift All-Stars Sweden Livestream this weekend (mostly because you were drunk at a BBQ celebrating America’s birthday) the great guys at Drift All-Stars made a nice recap video for you to consume. The video runs through the best battles of the weekend from the super hot round in Sweden.

Rutledge Wood of Top Gear USA fame was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast last week and brought up drifting on more than one occasion in the show. If you are unfamiliar with the Joe Rogan Experience it is a show (also podcast you can download through proper radio means) where he has guests over from all walks of life and chats about interesting topics. Rutledge Wood is the proud owner of the DTA 2JZ powered Scion XB that Pat Mordaunt took drifting around Willow Springs back in the day. If you are lazy, skip to about 35 minutes and tune in for a while.